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Now we’ll find out how many will choose Kackert and the champion Argonauts over all the other sporting options in a city suddenly blossoming with athletic possibilities.

If this is a town in which circumstances make it hard to win a championship — a dubious proposition but one many buy into — the Argos are evidence that it’s also one in which winning a championship doesn’t necessarily make everything easier.

Maybe the Argos simply exist in a different place than the Maple Leafs, Raptors and Blue Jays. But one might have thought the rousing Grey Cup championship won in late November before a packed audience at the dome would have translated into a buzz we’d all still be feeling.

Instead, last week’s re-signing of Kackert, the Grey Cup MVP, was reported but quietly so. Compare that to the headlines surrounding Super Bowl MVP Joe Flacco as he looks for a new contract with the Baltimore Ravens and, well, the two don’t really compare at all do they?

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Really, since the Argos won it all it’s been deadly quiet. Even last winter with the Ricky Ray trade was noisier, although you wonder how much of it is the Argos and how much of it is due to the exciting Toronto sports landscape unfolding around them.

“It’s something you understand,” Kackert said before heading to the gym for a noon workout on Tuesday. “It’s a competitive city. You know in other CFL cities there’s not so much going on and it’s different.

“But I feel very grateful what we had in November.”

Kackert ran for 133 yards against Calgary that day and caught passes for another 82 yards. It was a noteworthy performance for a backup who ended up taking a star turn.

Winning the 100th Grey Cup seemed to set the stage for the Argos to improve on their business, particularly attendance, which had sagged since the Howard Sokolowski/David Cynamon years.

We’ll see. What we do know is that almost as soon as the vapid nothingness that was Justin Bieber cleared, everything started happening with the other teams in town. All the losers started trying to win.

The Jays — who coincidentally seem focused on booting the Argos out of the dome one day to install a grass field — have been a page-one story for months with their spectacular acquisitions of an array of star players. If there was ever a chance the baseball club could rule this hockey town, as it did in the late 1980s and early 1990s, this would be the time.

The Leafs, of course, were paralyzed by the 113-day lockout until early January. As soon as that was over, the dismissal of Brian Burke stole all the headlines for days and now the seemingly improved 10-7 hockey club is garnering all kinds of attention for more positive reasons.

Trading for Rudy Gay, meanwhile, substantially altered the conversation surrounding the Raptors, a team seemingly sentenced indefinitely to low television ratings and an existence on the periphery of the NBA. Gay, 26, could be the best and most entertaining player the team has owned since Vince Carter, possibly altering the future of this team in a decisive way.

So where does this leave the reigning CFL champions?

“We do what we can,” said Kackert. “It’s a two-way street. We do our best to get our fans to come and to stay. At the same time, we hope we have support no matter what happens.”

Kackert dismissed overtures from the New York Jets to sign a two-year deal with the Argos, noteworthy in a town where so many stars have left. Most of the Argo offence, a pretty lethal group by the end of the season, will be back and possibly aided by the addition of new offensive coordinator Marcus Brady and receiver Romby Bryant.

Still, the Argos will have to sell and sell some more this time without a Grey Cup ticket with which to entice fans.

“Every player on this team, from the guys on the practice squad to the players on the field, should know they are representing the team,” said Kackert. “I’m just in a position now where I may be representing the team more than someone else.

“We’ve just to keep building on what we’ve been doing. I don’t care how exciting it is as long as we win at end of the game.”

That should be the formula but isn’t necessarily for the Argos, a team that may have picked the worst time to win a championship.

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